Family of Marie Colvin, Slain U.S. Journalist, Sues Syria

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Relatives of Marie Colvin, a veteran American war reporter who died more than four years ago in an artillery barrage in Syria, have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Syrian government, accusing it of targeting and killing her as part of a systematic strategy to silence civilian journalists and activists covering the war.

The civil complaint, filed Saturday in federal court in Washington, contends that high-ranking Syrian officials, including President Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher and other top advisers, worked in concert to locate, track and target foreign journalists and Syrians who had helped them. It lays out new details of the events leading to Ms. Colvin’s death, citing witnesses and government sources and documents uncovered in what the family’s lawyers described as a three-year investigation.

Ms. Colvin, a longtime correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, was killed on Feb. 22, 2012, along with a French photojournalist, Rémi Ochlik, when Syrian government forces shelled an apartment building used by journalists.

The attack occurred during weeks of bombardment of the rebellious neighborhood of Baba Amr in the city of Homs — the first of many operations in which government forces used siege tactics and indiscriminate shelling against rebel-held areas — and before the emergence of extremist Islamist militant groups like the Nusra Front and the Islamic State.

Ms. Colvin’s family and colleagues have long argued that the attack — hours after she had issued a live report accusing the Syrian government of bombarding “cold, starving civilians” — was deliberate. The government has always contended that its attacks have targeted terrorists, and that journalists operating outside government-controlled territory, as Ms. Colvin was, break Syrian law at their own risk.

But now the plaintiffs say they will present evidence of what they describe as a murder that resulted from a government policy.

It is the first attempt to sue the Syrian government for its war conduct under a statute allowing Americans to sue foreign governments, like Syria’s, that the United States lists as state sponsors of terrorism, said Scott Gilmore, a lawyer in Washington with the Center for Justice and Accountability. Mr. Gilmore led the investigation and helped file the lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses nine Syrian officials, including the intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk and military officers in Homs, of developing and executing the strategy against journalists and activists. It details meetings in which an informant helped officials verify the location of the media center using phone-tracking data. It even contends that a pro-government militia leader, Khaled al-Fares, received “a black luxury car” three days after the deaths, as a reward.

Ms. Colvin’s sister, Cathleen Colvin, said in a telephone interview that she aimed not only to “bring her killers to justice” with the lawsuit, but also to help Syrian victims in seeking accountability for atrocities committed by government officials and others.

“I’m not the only one who lost a sister,” she said. “I really do hope that all the perpetrators are brought to justice for war crimes, and hopefully this is the first step.”

The complaint includes what appears to be a government document shedding light on the response to protests that began in early 2011, the genesis of the war. In the next months, thousands of civilian activists were killed at demonstrations, and many more were arrested.

The document is a letter dated Aug. 6, 2011, from the National Security Bureau of the ruling Baath Party to officials in restive provinces, including Homs. It orders them to arrest protest organizers and others who “tarnish the image of Syria in foreign media.”

In January 2012, the complaint says, Mr. Mamlouk, the intelligence chief, and a deputy defense minister, Asef Shawkat, told Arab League monitors that foreign journalists were intelligence agents, demanded information on them and said they could “destroy Baba Amr in 10 minutes” if “there were no cameras.”

In February, the complaint says, Mr. Mamlouk and a deputy, Rafiq Shehadeh, learned from intelligence contacts in Lebanon that foreign journalists were en route to Baba Amr. On Feb. 21, military intelligence officials intercepted their phone signals, the complaint says, and an informer in Baba Amr contacted Mr. Fares to tell him the media center’s location. Early the next day, artillery attacks on the center killed Ms. Colvin and Mr. Ochlik.